


And I Will Find You in the Sunshine

by araliya



Series: The Wonder Years [3]
Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-03 21:58:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14005677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/araliya/pseuds/araliya
Summary: A series of vignettes that follow Chris and Darren as childhood best friends.





	And I Will Find You in the Sunshine

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by To Build A Home by The Cinematic Orchestra, whose lyrics are used in this fic.

**The Fifth Summer  
**

 

***

 

_out in the garden where we planted the seeds  
there is a tree as old as me_

 

***

 

Two little boys play in a garden. One is loud, laughing, teeth little flashes of white as his voice chatters. The other is quieter yet no less happy, a shy smile pulling two rosy cheeks up his on his face, eyes stormy and sparkling.

 

They make mud cakes in the grass, dirt collecting under their fingernails, soil stains smearing across their knees. Their mothers will cluck at them, will make them wash their hands and spread them out later for inspection, and the boys will share giddy smiles over their chiding voices.

 

**The Eighth Summer**

 

***

 

_branches were sewn by the color of green  
ground had arose and passed it's knee_

 

***

 

Chris can’t remember exactly when he met Darren. All he remembers is always seeing his infectious smile, his riotous curls, his dinosaur t-shirts and grubby sneakers.

 

Those same grubby sneakers are swinging in the air above the shiny linoleum floor, and Chris would laugh that Darren’s feet can’t reach the ground except neither can his- they’re both the smallest in their class.

 

He would also laugh if it weren’t for the fact that the linoleum floors belong to the hospital.

 

Chris doesn’t really like hospitals. They smell funny and they’re too white and clean, and he’s not allowed to touch anything. The adults try to assure him that everything’s fine whenever they come over here, but Chris isn’t  _stupid_ , he knows it’s not.

 

Everything isn’t okay when his little sister gets so sick that she can’t stay at home, instead having to lie in a bed with lots of tubes and wires and other things Chris is a too afraid to ask about. When this happens, he usually ends up in the playroom, which he likes because there are lots of books and crayons and toys.

 

Most times, Chris likes to sit with Hannah and tell her stories with his action figures. She’s too little to understand most of them, but she giggles if he makes enough sound effects.

 

Darren’s here with him today. For ‘moral support’, Chris’ Dad had said, ruffling Darren’s hair, eyes strange and tired. Chris isn’t sure what that means, but he likes having his best friend there. It makes everything seem a little bit more okay. Not completely okay, like the adults tell them, but a little.

 

The ladies at the reception had cooed over them, and Chris thinks they wouldn’t be half as excited if Darren weren’t there with him. He tells Darren as much, who laughs and pulls at Chris’ cheeks and tells him he’s ‘ _adowable_ ’ in a gooey baby voice.

 

Chris gets revenge by beating him during a fight with their Power Rangers.

 

**The Twelfth Summer**

 

***

 

_tables and chairs worn by all of the dust  
this is a place where I don't feel alone_

 

***

 

One day, Darren is gone.

 

It’s only for a couple of years, Darren tells him, but Chris still feels like his departure is as jarring and final as the word itself.

 

They can pen-pals except with emails, Darren says as he bounces on the balls of his feet, eyes brimming with excitement. Chris is angry that Darren is actually  _happy_  when  _he's_  the one being left behind.

 

(He doesn’t want to tell Darren that he  _has_  to stay because otherwise, Chris will have no one. He doesn’t want to tell him that the other boys like to push and shove and call him names. He doesn’t want to tell him that the only reason Chris doesn’t come home from school and _cry_ is because of Darren.)

 

So instead he gives Darren a present to remember him by (a Mickey Mouse watch whose twin lies wrapped around Chris’ own wrist), and scribbles down Darren’s utterly ridiculous email address.

 

Chris doesn’t see Darren again for twenty-five months.

 

**The Fourteenth Summer**

 

***

 

_by the cracks of the skin I climbed to the top  
I climbed the tree to see the world_

 

***

 

Having Darren back is a little bit of a shock.

 

At first, it’s Chris freaking out a lot more than he should and stuttering and stumbling his way over his words, and then it’s Darren smiling so widely all his teeth show, and then it’s like they’ve never been apart.

 

They find themselves in the midst of it. Chris hasn’t been much of anything lately, sticking to visiting his Grandma after school and filling notebook after notebook with tidy writing. Within weeks, Darren is the theatre kid whom everyone knows the name of, and Chris is the theatre kid who has to make his own productions because he never gets cast in the school’s ones.

 

It’s okay, mostly, because Darren reads Chris' stories over and over, even quoting them back to him, and refuses to participate in anything if Chris isn’t in it. So all in all, while having Darren back might be a shock, it’s a good one. 

 

He is, of course, more beautiful than ever, but Chris isn’t going to let himself think about that.

 

**The Fifteenth Summer**

 

***

 

_When the gusts came around to blow me down  
I held on as tightly as you held onto me_

 

***

 

The kiss, the kiss is something special. It knocks all the breath out of him yet brings him to life all at once, feels like his skin is flaring and glowing with light, feels like he might just _drown_ if Darren pulls away.

 

And then it all comes rushing back to him and it’s Chris who’s pulling away, touching his fingers to his lips and blushing when they come back damp.

 

Words are said that leave Chris without the weight of a thousand bricks on his shoulders, and walls are knocked down that, around Darren, probably weren’t even up in the first place.

 

When Chris goes home, he takes Hannah’s watercolours and tries to recreate the exact color of Darren’s eyes- shining in the darkness of the nook under the stairs.

 

**The Seventeenth Summer**

 

***

 

_I held on as tightly as you held onto me_

 

***

 

It’s overwhelming in a way that’s not scary like you’re a step away from a cliff’s edge overlooking swirling water, but all-encompassing like you’re falling but you know that nothing will break.

 

Darren’s touch is feather light against his skin, tracing a never-ending path down his neck, across his chest, along the line of his waist. Sunlight ripples across their bodies as it filters through the leaves outside. It paints Darren’s body with mottled gold and brown, and Chris can’t imagine what he himself looks like, flushed and breathless, back pressed against the floorboards.

 

They’re in the treehouse at the end of the garden, and Chris wishes he could say that they built it themselves but they didn't, not really. They built the memories inside it, though, and as Darren would say, unapologetically cheesily, memories are what make a house a home.

 

Laying like this, Chris doesn’t know where he ends and Darren begins, and Chris is loath to say the cliche, but he doesn’t think he’s ever felt so at home.

 

Darren moves like he dances, passionate and without restraint, and Chris gives back as much as he receives without even having to try.

 

He’s falling apart under a beautiful boy who would put him back together if he only asked so.

 

**The Eighteenth Summer**

 

***

 

_'cause, I built a home  
for you_

 

***

 

They break up a week before graduation.

 

Two thousand a half thousand miles doesn’t seem a lot until it suddenly really  _does_ , and Chris decides that a clean break is better than the slow, desperate gurgle to the inevitable finish line.

 

Darren cries.

 

It is the first and only time Chris has ever seen Darren cry- he doesn’t even remember him doing it when they were little. The tears trace tracks down Darren’s cheeks as he listens wordlessly, a dull red flush blooming across the bridge of his nose and under his eyes.

 

What Darren doesn’t know is that with every word, Chris is taking a hammer to another part of his heart. He doesn’t know that Chris’ fingernails are bitten down to the quick, doesn’t know that Chris hasn’t slept for the past week, doesn’t know that the moment after Darren leaves, Chris falls to his knees and clutches at his chest as if his lungs refuse to take in the air.

 

He doesn’t know that Chris curses him for being the most beautiful thing he has ever seen, even when his eyes are bloodshot with tears.

 

Chris barely remembers graduation. It is a blur of faces he still doesn’t know the names of and well-wishes fueled by blind sentimentimentality and the knowledge that, in a week, they’ll be all but strangers. Chris can’t tell if the feeling slowly broiling in his stomach is relief or sudden and inescapable  _fear_.

 

He’s alone.

 

Chris has spent so long pushing everyone away, clutching at the opportunity to leave the cowtown that he’d been straddled with like a child closing its chubby fist around soap bubbles. And now he’s gone and pushed Darren away, and it’s just Chris against the world.

 

It’s less satisfying than he thought it would be, not when it’s always been  _DarrenandChris_  against the world.

 

**The Twentieth Summer**

 

***

 

_and, I built a home_

_for you_

_for me_

 

***

 

A suitcase lies open, spilling its contents across the carpeted floor. The vent puffs air into the room, dispersing the chill and leaving warmth in its wake.

 

In the bed are two young men, limbs tangled, fingers interlocked.

 

It had been inevitable, Chris thinks. Inevitable since the day they met, inevitable since the hospital beds and Power Rangers and Mickey Mouse watches, inevitable since the tree house.

 

Inevitable since the text message that vibrated from Chris’ back pocket that read, _I never got to fight for you. Please let me fight for you._

 

Darren brushes a kiss against Chris’ forehead, and the dampness from his lips evaporates slowly, leaving prickling coolness in its wake. Chris turns in a little, lets his nose brush against the soft skin at the base of Darren’s neck, lets the warmth of his arms bleed through his own skin.

 

Two and a half thousand miles won’t get to keep them apart.

 

Home is where the heart is, they say, and Chris’ heart is carefully cradled in the calloused, tender hands of a boy whose smile could light up the world.


End file.
